


miles away

by bountifulsilences



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Canon Divergence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fix-It, Fluff, Happy Ending, Light Angst, M/M, Not Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-28 19:16:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19818799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bountifulsilences/pseuds/bountifulsilences
Summary: Returning to what Steve believes is his rightful present, an enlightening discussion with Peggy illuminates certain feelings he never thought he had, and that maybe, just maybe, his happy ending had reached him all those years ago when the mask fell.





	miles away

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mundane97](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mundane97/gifts).



> to a person who deserves the universe, i offer you a fix-it that you wanted to read after the hellish experience that was endgame.  yani  i hope this is what you wanted and that you enjoy it bud. i love you, immensely and dearly.

Mysteries were abundant in the tumultuous passages of his mind: that was a revelation he made a long time ago. Staying warm, a newfound aversion to water, pausing in his step to stare blankly at the road and decide, _something is missing_. Leaping from the past to future manipulated many parts of him, something akin to evolution he thought. 

To survive, he would have to adapt. To adapt, it was imperative to eradicate the remnants of his soul which were beloved to those he left behind. Gone were smiles and gone was contentment, to live he had to hurt. And to hurt, he watched the orbiting planet in a dismay he never thought was possible to abolish. 

Over the years, stagnant in his suffering and barely conscious as he passed through the valleys of time, he became accustomed to the new way of life. Having seen death, deterioration, more death, and losses of unimaginable scales, he thought nothing could faze him. Usher his anxious self into the spotlight from the shadows it lingered.

That was, until he saw her.

“She was beautiful, you know? Radiant. There was just something about her that when I saw her, I felt- it was as though- I was…”

“Calm,” Bucky finished, voice hollow. “It was as though all the wrongs had been made right and as long as you have her, you conquer any war, any dilemma. Because regardless, you have her: your home.”

Staring at the lake, eyes misty in the darkness, he nodded. “As long as she’s by my side, I could do this all again. She’d make it worth it.”

“Yeah, I know the feeling,” Bucky said in a voice as quiet as a whisper. “You should go to her. Chances like this, they don’t come around often. Sometimes you have to make a couple of bumps in the road to get where you belong.”

Propped against the wall of the cabin, where Tony’s soul lingered and stifled the air with his immense loss, Bucky shuffled. No doubt lifted his leg and pressed his shoes against the wooden wall, shoe camouflaging with the oak. Arms crossing, his head dropped and hair fanned his face, long enough to conceal him from view.

It was a position he held more often than not. Steve didn’t know what to make of the exhaustion that haunted Bucky. He couldn’t stay upright these days, was it because of the war?

“You know.” Steve looked at his fingers as he fiddled with them in apprehension. “I think sometimes-”

“Who knew that was possible?”

Steve smiled suddenly, mumbling, “shut up.” Bucky let out an almost vacant laugh. “I meant that, it wouldn’t be too bad. Putting back the tesseract and meeting Peggy, finally getting the dance. I wouldn’t oppose it.”

It was silent, save for the sound of water trickling in the lake and crickets hiding in the grass. Despite what he thought, the rest of the world disagreed. The melancholy hovering above him as a raincloud that was prepared to flourish projected as much.

“You should do it,” Bucky said eventually, voice indescribable. Did he not wish this for Steve?

“Say the word. Say the word and I’ll stay here with you forever. I thought you were better but if you’re not then-”

“Steve,” he interjected softly. “I’m fine, pal. Never been better. It’s time you get your happy ending, don’t you think?”

He frowned, glancing at his porcelain hands once more and scrutinising the blemish free skin. “I. I miss her.”

“Then maybe it’s time you did something about it.”

Funny. The precarious thought of leaving behind Bucky and Sam left him feeling unfulfilled, crumbled his foundation into cinders of confusion. But the need to greet Peggy once more and to hold her soft edges in his palms, feel the soft curls rest against his lips, it was as paramount as any intense desire could be. 

“The worlds healing. You’re healing. Sam’s healing. Maybe nobody needs me anymore.” A weak justification, he knew. But it was all he could conceive.

Bucky didn’t reply, rested a hand on his shoulder and squeezed in support. Without hesitation, Steve sheltered it with his own and felt the heat seep into him. Looking down at his shoes, savouring the touch and recalling just how necessary it was for him, he quirked a smile. Come rain, snow or depression, nothing could ever annihilate the magnificence of a Barnes’ touch.

It was promised to deliver safety and life, saving Steve too many a time that he couldn’t keep count. His remedy had never been the Last Rites a priest would read over him, nor the medicine his mother occasionally stole from the hospital. It always had been, and still was, Bucky Barnes.

“There’s always going to be someone who needs you, you’re Steve. But if you don’t start living a life that you want, then by the time you look your age you’re going to have a lot of regrets. Regrets no time machine can fix.”

He hated just how right Bucky was. 

“Come here,” he said tightly, swallowing as he brushed his eyes over the woods in anticipation but also deep-rooted regret. “Come here.”

Bucky moved as though complying to Steve was all he was made to do and appeared before him, looking as wrecked as the Avengers compound miles away. Inexplicably, Steve’s chest constricted and his throat clenched, words insufficient and useless. Why did the prospect of leaving him hurt so much? Was happiness a myth?

Eyes sincere and piercing into Steve’s, lips drooping in a dejection he couldn’t place, Bucky was still as beautiful as the nebulas decorating the universe. An intricate composition of the finest cells forged in space; a completion of all things incomplete within Steve. Leaving him was as though he was departing from his soul. It perturbed him more than he ever thought it could.

Overwhelmed with just how much love he reserved for Bucky, he drew him close to his body and engrossed all the parts he possible could, merging them together for a final time. Letting their hearts beat in sync as their chests connected, a symphony he could never grow tired of hearing. 

“Gonna miss you Buck,” he mumbled, voice lost in the air as it engulfed his words. 

Hugging Steve just as hard, he replied, “I’m gonna miss you too Stevie.”

And that was all they could offer to the other, weak consolation for an unimaginably large separation. He wanted this, needed to go to Peggy and obtain the life he was supposed to want. Bucky encouraged him to do this, they both wanted it to happen.

So why did Bucky cower away from him as tears fell from his eyes, and why did every fibre of Steve’s own body repel the idea of returning to his home?

*

Climbing onto the podium, fingers holding the briefcase and hammer too hard to be serene, he looked at Bucky, etching one of his best memories from all the times he lived into his mind. As though it was possible, Bucky looked even worse from the day they had the conversation and he couldn’t help but feel culprit.

_You were my best moments even when the days were a collection of misery. An ember of warmth which softened the blows of depression when they inevitably came. Having you near repulsed the pernicious thoughts that only grew and took and devastated. My knight in shining armour, if nothing else. Had I been a damsel, you were my happy ending._

Calling the helmet to sheath his face and hide Bucky’s despair, Steve stared at the trees looming around them. A final goodbye.

*

The street was painfully familiar. Bright with lights that sourced from their undying glee, bodies of people clustered everywhere as they hugged and laughed and rejoiced, beers threatening to overflow in their cups. Cheer cased the building, music thrumming around them, the vibrations pinching their skin and inserting each cell with the energy to celebrate.

“The war is over!” they cried, smiles splitting their faces into two, luminous and innocent and so relieved. “We’re home!”

Resounding yells exploded in the room, people drinking messily and embracing one another once more. For a second, Steve’s lips quirked at the performance. The unfiltered solace was something vacant during his years in the past- his newly found present. Desolation and misery had contaminated the land, tainting the seeds for every flower and injecting fear into every tree. But now, it was nothing but a distant memory. Now, it was an inescapable nightmare that they’d try to forget.

Strolling past the bodies attached to one another, smiling kindly at everyone he could, ignoring the gnawing voice which reminded him of the atrocities that would soon occur post the war commemorations, he basked in the glee. It was a rare gift to come by. 

Wanting Peggy to be there was a pipe dream, a chimera he viciously held on to, afraid to confront the reality that she wasn’t. Knowing that it had been mere weeks since his crash into Arctic, Peggy may be mourning for him. Or perhaps was busy and unable to take a day off- _this_ day off. There were severe complications in his plan.

Yet he walked to the bar that they had discussed one night when they stole a moment to meet, pushed open the door and stepped into the room, feeling his heart pulsate alongside the feelings of jubilation. It was infectious, minimising the pain of having left behind a soul he couldn’t seem to forget regardless of the elation.

But he couldn’t mourn. Not anymore. Or rather, not at the moment. Not when he saw a face so lovely it had to be seized from his dreams. 

She was there. Wearing a dress the colour of a bloody sunset, lips painted red and hair curled, perfectly composed with not a strand out of place. Sat at the bar, a half-drunk glass before her and a smile that Steve usually saw aimed at him, directed at the woman who was serving drinks.

Feeling his throat tighten around the longing he had so barely contained all these years, he swallowed his apprehension. 

Approaching her, he felt a smile lift his lips and drown his pupil with the image of her beauty, stomach airy with anticipation. Pausing a breath from her ear, he whispered, “mind if I have this dance?”

He had only just moved his head when she turned to face him, a gasp barely audible in the rowdy room. Their eyes met, electricity soaring between them, and she stared in unhinged shock. The feeling was not beknown to him, having experienced the same euphoric disbelief when the mask was torn from a face he had begrudgingly believed he’d lost.

Silent, so she could understand what was happening, Steve stood painfully still as her soft fingertips reached his face and tentatively, nervousness and fear brimming in affluence, she touched him. Tenderly stroking his cheek and staring at his eyes as though it wasn’t possible. Which it wasn’t, not for that time at least. 

“It can’t be,” she whispered, searching him in an urgency she didn’t try to hide, damned be her resilience. “I-I spoke to you when the-” swallowing hard, she controlled her elevating breathing. “When the plane fell. I lost you.”

Nodding gently, he smiled at her and replied, “you did. A lot has happened, all which I promise to explain in due time. But may I please have this dance? We had a date.”

Hurriedly wiping tears which streamed from her eyes, she exhaled deeply and nodded. Turning back to the bartender, she said in subdued desperation, “I’ll be right back, my love. Save my drink for me?”

“Sure thing, English,” the lady said, raising her drink at her. “I’ll keep a close eye on this one.”

Peggy didn’t respond but Steve saw her smile gratefully. Inclining to him, she smiled in a way that had his stresses slipping from his shoulders and grabbed his hand, pulling him to the corner of the room, slipping through the mass of people. Mesmerised, Steve let her take him where she wanted to go, blindly following her.

When those he loved were in control he had no choice but to follow, no place was too far or too dangerous when they were with them. 

Finding themselves some seclusion, Peggy pulled him close and set the rhythm for a slow dance that outcasted them in a room that buzzed with never ending liveliness. Resting his cheek against her head, he sighed in relief. It didn’t feel like home, but it felt like something. He didn’t think too hard on it, he couldn’t.

“Want to explain everything to me from the beginning?” she asked, lips pressing against his chest. 

Opening his eyes, he stared at the wall behind her and remembered: the story contained people he no longer had. People he had lost once more. Those he chose to leave behind. Burying the sadness which ignited at the thought, he nodded. He owed her as much. So, he did.

Retold the story excluding only some personal details and let her hear the life he had lived thus far. It had not been totally wonderful, but for him, it had been enough and that was what he strived for. Contentment and connections which made each day worth living. He had made plenty there, some he couldn’t help but see now that he was gone. 

Finishing the recollection, he waited on her response, nervous but also ready. Regardless of what happened, he had got the dance. A weight was lifted from his chest. Maybe that was what degenerated him, needing to fulfil one of his own promises. He had done it now, it was over. 

“You’ve found a family there, didn’t you?” she asked, her voice as dazzling and demanding as he remembered. “Especially Sergeant Barnes. Who you unknowingly followed into the future and consequently saved. Please, tell me, have you both figured it out yet?” She pulled back, still in his grasp, and looked him in the eyes. “Are you both happy? At last?”

Confused, and unable to hide it, he questioned, “what do you mean? Figure out what?”

“Oh,” she uttered, her own face overcome with confusion. “Are those times as oppressive as these? Because I can assure you Steve, whether you love a man or a woman I love you no less.”

Gaping, he said, “no- no, they are! They’re very progressive. They can get married and adopt children and some even have their own. They fought hard for their rights and they’re starting to get them, as they should. I just, what do you mean?”

“I assumed that you and the Sergeant had finally stopped dancing circles around one another and admitted your love, but I guess not. What are you waiting for? The both of you aren’t getting any younger.”

“I don’t- he doesn’t- we aren’t- I find men and women attractive, it’s called bisexuality but he’s straight. He doesn’t love me like that. And me him. I don’t love him like that either Peggy.”

She raised an eyebrow which scrutinized all his weak explanations. “Then how do you love him? As a brother?”

“No, of course not,” he clarified immediately. It felt wrong to call his devotion and admiration for Bucky brotherly when it had always been so much more deep and intense. It was love untouched and boundless. 

“As a friend?” she tried again. 

Making a face, he shook his head and said, “it is but not really. It’s just, he’s Bucky, you know? My...everything.” 

Eyes sympathetic, she observed, “you don’t even know just how much you love him, or how you love him, do you?”

He stared at her in growing panic.

“Coming back to me, right here right now, what do you want?” she asked, moving out of his grip entirely and holding onto his hands. 

“I don’t know anymore,” he declared in a whisper.

Pointing at the bartender, she said, “you see that woman right there? Her name is Angie. Angie Martinelli and quite possibly the love of my life.” Steve’s eyes darted to hers in unrestrained surprise. “Yes, I am also queer, much like yourself I suppose. I love both men and women, and this woman just so happened to steal my heart without me even realising.”

Steve glanced at Angie and saw her animated hands as they served drinks, the smiles and laughs which he could hear from as far as he was, and the way she would continue to indulge in quick glimpses of Peggy as often as possible. Peggy had already found her happy ending.

“And I knew from the war that Mr Barnes had done the same to you. So, tell me Steve, what are you doing here? You have both lived long and heavy lives with little to no refuge. Why deprive yourself of the love you deserve?”

“He loves me?” Steve breathed.

“More than he loves God Himself. When I tell you he is utterly and completely in love with you Steve, I mean it. I think now it’s time for _you_ to consider the nature of your relationship with him and return to the heart you’ve left at home. He needs you, and has always needed you, more than anyone ever could.”

“He loves me,” Steve repeated, a prayer almost it was said with such need.

Perhaps getting the dance was all he needed, a commitment unnecessary. Perhaps, his happy ending had reached him all those years ago when the mask fell. 

“He does.”

Home. He needed to go home.

*

Bucky stared at him. Unabashed, blatant surprise that he didn’t even try to hide (but he hides _everything_ ) and shadowed Steve as he walked off the podium to Bruce as Sam approached him. Paralysed, he did nothing. 

“You return the stones okay?”

“I did. And then some more.”

*

Talking seemed infinitely harder since Peggy’s declaration and since he had acknowledged his feelings for Bucky were far from platonic. When loving him wasn’t possible, he never let himself believe he did: banished the prospect of ever letting himself fall in love with Bucky. But somewhere, somehow, within the past that contained ruins and derelict homes and landscapes of opportunities, he realised that he did.

His allegiance to Bucky was unparalleled, could never be challenged by a single breathing soul on the planet. It never was. Whether it was by people at the arts centre, the war and its distressing tragedies, or even the family he had so hesitantly established here. Wherever Bucky was concerned, no man or woman could compete.

He had always been the one for Steve.

So, harbouring the revelations and working through what he felt, he lingered in the back and surveyed the world with fresh lenses. He could see it now, having been shown the way, that Peggy was right. Despite how much they changed, they still sought each other whenever they could. Craved the other, intoxicated on their touch. To think it was anything but love was foolish.

He loved Bucky in ways he could never love another, and it was time for him to finally get some of that life Tony had told him about.

*

They were back at the cabin, night shrouding them from the revealing gaze of the sun. A light breeze tickled the lake and made the water skate at the surface, generating a sound he found undeniably soothing. Beside him, Bucky was in a chair and studying the land, uninterested. 

“What happened to getting your happy ending?” 

He huffed a laugh. “Who's to say I don’t already have it?”

“I don’t see Carter,” Bucky stated, as though that was all that was necessary. 

Perhaps once, when he thought that his epilogue was flirtatious smiles and curvy hips that his hands cupped and squeezed, but it wasn’t. It was quiet solitude and occasional detrimental nightmares coupled with warmth and love nobody could ever deliver except one. 

“Turns out I don’t need to stay where I don’t belong, I just needed to fulfil a promise,” he explained, tampering with the urge to glance at Bucky. Just because he could look didn’t mean Steve could. 

Bucky shook his head slowly. “You could have had everything, and you blew it.”

“I have everything I need here,” Steve vowed, looking exactly at Bucky as he did, projecting as much want as he could without having to say it.

“Like what? War and death?” his companion scoffed.

His lips quirked in a simple smile. “You.”

_You’ve always been my anchor, preventing me from drifting to the stars and losing myself amongst the rubble. With a firm grasp around my hand, you guide me to the home I thought I was never deserving of. An ethereal dream who is a reality and not a fantasy, blanketing the despair and pulling me from its clutches. Have I always loved you like so?_

Bucky stared at him hard. “What did she tell you?”

“Is it true? Do you love me?” he asked in a gentle whisper, forehead creasing as he asked knowing just how stupid it was, but also how stupidly true he wanted it to be. Bucky could always do better than him, not much had changed. 

Bucky inhaled a sharp breath and turned away. “Look, Steve, you could have had the life that you’ve been dying for and you-”

“Is it true?” he intervened, almost pleading for an answer.

Sighing, Bucky answered with a resigned nod. “It is.”

“So, why were you going to let me make the biggest mistake of my life?”

“Anything or anyone you want as much as you want Carter could never be a mistake,” Bucky told him, voice hollow as he shrugged. “I would never not let you be happy. Not even if it sent me to my grave.”

Funny, Steve thought, how it all worked out. Because (not that it was even remotely comparable) Bucky had always been his greatest want, his hope and dream and need.

Adjusting out of the ice, Steve had accepted the grim fate- reality, that he’d lost Bucky. After all, had he even survived the fall, he was surely gone by now. Everyone had. It’d been 70 years. So, any hope of finding Bucky, being with him, touching his soft skin that would no doubt be wrinkled with the live he’d have lived was impossible.

But he dreamt about it nonetheless, chest gaping as it struggled to breathe anything but grief. Seeing Bucky. Smiling, laughing, holding his fingers so delicately that Steve almost believed him when he said they were as precious as the masterpieces he drew. It was infinite, how many dreams he had. Countless and endless, tormenting him with desire that was insatiable. 

But then, somehow, some way, defying all the odds there were, Bucky was here. Exactly where Steve was, just within arm’s reach. He wished to speak, mind exploding with words he could not shed. But ultimately, why speak? Words have always been too weak.

And so, he hugged him. Once, twice, thrice. trying to savour the undeniable feel of Bucky, his blood gushing through his limbs and the warmth that meant he’s alive. He was here. Oh god, he was here and so was Steve, they both were.

It was a dream come true, but so much real and so less empty, better than anything his mind could produce.

“You were the first person to always make me happy,” Steve divulged, feeling vulnerable in a way he couldn’t escape. “My home in the thirties and my home now. Leaving with the intention to never come back...it made me sick and empty, but I just didn’t realise why. Not properly anyway. I do now.”

“You don’t love me like that,” Bucky said, shaking his head forlorn and wearing a self-deprecating smile. “I think she got into your head, maybe, I don’t know and now you think you love me in a way you don’t. It’s all good pal.”

Steve impulsively put his hand on Bucky’s thigh, not even blinking when Bucky rested his palm over Steve’s. “What are you to me?”

“What?”

He squeezed gently. “What are you to me?”

“I don’t know.” Bucky was perplexed. “A friend?”

“More than that.”

“Best friend?”

“Are we in school, Buck?”

“I don’t- I don’t know.”

Sympathetically, Steve professed, “you’re my masterpiece, my poem, my destination and my path. I don’t think a word exists for me to call you, but beloved seems about right.”

Bucky choked. “You don’t mean this.”

“I have never meant anything more.”

“Since when did you get all poetic on me, Rogers, huh? All this fancy talk isn’t you,” Bucky said, and Steve smiled, thrusting his shoulders upward.

“It all started when I realised I love you.”

Inhaling a quick, abrupt gasp of air, Bucky froze. “Say that again.”

“I love you,” he promised, hoping to leak some of his yearning into the intensity of his words. “More than this life itself.”

“But I- but I’m…” Bucky drawled, eyes meeting Steve’s and drowning in confusion. “You… fuck, I love you too much to even try to think about scaring you away.”

Faces sincere and eyes warm, Steve slid his knees next to Bucky’s and stated, “then don’t. I’m not going anywhere, regardless of what you say and do.”

“You should.”

“If I did, I would be making the biggest mistake of my life. I really shouldn't.” 

Tribulations had blinded him. It was simple. Getting lost in his mind and the turmoil it brewed, he told himself that Peggy was the only one for him. That he had to have her to obtain ultimate bliss. Unable to identify the sickness haunting his throat, he couldn’t understand why leaving his supposed future and returning to his rightful present terrified him.

Now, with the information spread before him as a map, timeline navigating his thoughts and feelings, information pouring from his mind onto the sheet and forcing him to confront his foolishness, he knew why. Always, since the dawn of his time, he had loved Bucky and to leave him would surely have ceased the heart beating in his chest.

He needed motivation to live, and it came as a man with soft smiles and tortured eyes. He couldn’t live contently without him.

“Leaving you once was a mistake, leaving you a second time foolishness, but a third? I don’t think that’s allowed,” he said, “I guess, what I’m saying is, that little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb not to run away from a fight? He’s not going anywhere. Not now, not then, and not ever.”

Bucky huffed a small smile, electricity thrumming across his lips but the voltage too low to do anything. It could only grow once planted, nourished and nurtured; Steve promised to make sure Bucky would never not smile again. He was stubborn enough for that.

“You never did make good decisions,” he was told, “but I guess what I’m trying to say is, I'm following that asshole from Brooklyn. Always have and always will.”

Steve grinned, beaming enough to illuminate the darkness which enclosed them. “The asshole appreciates it.”

Rolling his eyes, Bucky pushed down his chuckle and reached out to grab Steve. Drawing him close, Steve willingly letting himself be directed, Bucky muttered, “shut up, you’ve said what you’ve had to say. Now kiss me like you mean it, Rogers. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”

“One hundred years of it.”

“Time to write the rest of our book together.”

“I can’t wait.”


End file.
